כל פעם שאני שומע אותך אני מתוודע לעומקים ותפיסות חדשות על המציאות, המוסר והחשיבה שלנו. תודה רבה לך! אתה גאווה לאומית!

I've never not learned something new after watching one of Yuval's lectures.

Greetings from Lebanon. I'm a fan of yours An amazing book of yours was banned in my country only because the author was Israeli, but I managed to get one from abroad and read it. Your philosophical way of tackling differences encourages the readers/listeners to workout their minds. With all of my consciousness; I'd like to say that I'm happy to subscribe to your educational channel. Thanks for the great lecture :) Shalom :)

I'm showing deep respect to Yuval Noah Harari for his amazing lecture

Mr Harari is the gift that keeps on giving. Insights that blow open thinking in those willing to let in new information. Thanks for you dedication and work to help humanity break through our current prejudices and thinking..

One criticism to Yuval. According the ancient Advaita Vedanta and the analytical idealism of our days, everything is a conscious. The stars, the material objects, our bodies and basically the whole universe. Just the same as Shpinoza stated. Our minds or more accurate, the sensory system (sansations, thoughts, feelings) is the thing that makes us suffer. This theory is a bit more complex from a political and ethical standpoint, but it is crucial for human and nature coexistence. Keep to promote such issues. Thanks.

I really enjoyed the medium-length video essay format. Or at least it will be something to chew on until the next book comes out ;) Keep up the good work!

Tengo que dar gracias al algoritmo y don Yuval Noah Harari porque me ha reventado las neuronas. Mi consciencia no puede describir lo que siente en estos momentos. Sentimientos vs inteligencia, la inteligencia nos hará libres. Internet nos hará libres porque cada vez somos más los que empezamos a ver la realidad como es, neutra. Son nuestros sentidos y la forma de interpretar que tienen que suframos cuando cada día es un regalo. La suerte de vivir, la suerte de poder amar. Si este comentario ha llegado hasta ti es porque hablas mi lengua y sabes de lo que estoy hablando porque a ti también te pasa, porque el mismo algoritmo que nos ha enseñado este video, porque esa idea que Harari se le ocurrió "I am gonna speak about the politics of consiosness" es una muestra de que todo está conectado y que lo mejor no está por llegar. Saludos de un colombiano-sevillano que vive en Escocia.

Interesting perspective . If consciousness is the capacity to feel pain, it should also mean the capacity to feel joy and love.

I'm liking the non-interview format, why dilute the brilliant insights?

Dr. Harari, thank you for sharing this powerful lecture and keeping it real! You speak to my heart and mind's eye. I've always thought that I was deficient in "consciousness". Your lecture reveals that I am conscious and consciousness. Highly empathic and this world seems so incorrect. It's like humanity's folly of ignorance seems so ridiculous and depressing to the point of my suffering. The inequality and exploitation of the poor, along with the total disregard for "Earth's Rights and Species Rights. I have held these feelings from an early age. Asking too many questions about "why is this happening?". I have been called a native sociologist. I've been told I "demand the impossible" of organization, institutions, and humanity. Ethical behavior is not impossible. Treat people the way they want to be treated. Have forethought about your actions, and their possible outcomes. Dr. Harari, thank you again for sharing this lecture and validating my consciousness and my ascribed status as Salt-of-the-Earth Ozark Queerbilly ~/*\~

Yuvaaaaal Noaaaaah Haraaaari, you are such an influence on the development of my consciousness.

Interesting. Looking forward to Part II.

The capacity to suffer must also include the capacity to enjoy, to love and sorry. There is an inherent capacity to know the difference of these and recognize one's place in its environment.

so important to give a right definition to consciousness ! People with agendas will also define it incorrectly ...

I think generally we confuse or limit consciousness to sentience. To me consciousness is not limited to suffering but to see the meaning behind one's suffering and to evolve ones understanding beyond feeling.

Consciousness allows you to notice suffering, just as much as noticing joy. Awareness comes first. If you don’t know “something” is here, it just isn’t.

You bang the door or splash a cold water, notice what a cow or chicken does. The fear response or running away or screaming reaction makes me believe that they suffer and feel the harm equally as we do. We have studied recently that if a cow is sent through a tighter column mimicking almost like a tight hug, they are calmer when getting butchered. Gives me a heartache 😢 I pray for advancement in plant based proteins.

What about the feeling of Joy this was totally discounted ❤

Thank you for this great lecture and even more thanks for not trying to sell something or including ads

Thank you for asking the right questions! I'd like to share a few thoughts on this topic. The crucial point here is to define suffering. What is the source of suffering? Can other animals have comparable suffering as we have? Can aliens have a similar sense of suffering as we have? As I understand, suffering has a biochemical source. Our brains have neuromediators and receptors to emerge the feeling of suffer that was evolutionary selected and allowed us to be those who we are. And may be here is the crucial point to extend the discussion with scientific socitety. Another interesting point in the discussion, that suffering depends not just on reality observing, but as a gap in between our understanding of reality (I call it 'the picture of the world'), observing reality, and our understanding of our role and abilities in each situation. This is the consciousness triangle. Moreover the suffering mostly come from our feeling that we can do nothing. In the most situations of suffering we underestimate our role and abilities. Most of us have terrible wrong understanding of who we are and what we can do. I believe philosophers and scientists together can do much more in this space, and here is the most unexplored territory. From practical perspective I found that each time I suffer, I ask myself what is my role, what I did to prevent the situation causes suffering, what can I do, and why I think I can't do more? This technique of reflection helped me a lot.

thanks harari, loved your explanations.

Dear yuval harari i have deep respect for you and your books I reccomend you go deeper into Eastern philosophies especially read the texts pertaining to advait vendanta philosophy and the concept of Brahman in that context I am 100% sure it will aid our collective understanding towards understanding consciousness

Amazing, your ability to simplify give tools to all people to think about very complicated issues. "Consciousness is the capacity to suffer" - simple, brilliant. Please write more books, and think more thoughts.

Yuval is quite adept at highlighting potential ethical and political risks that come with introducing hierarchy in consciousness, which serves as an important warning for researchers in the field. I appreciate the concept of subjecting theories to a 'suffering test' and using it to develop legal frameworks that might eliminate victimless crimes. I've come across references to research confirming suffering in plants, which could significantly broaden the scope of ethical and political discussions. It's intriguing to consider a potential correlation between the scale of suffering and the scale of empathy (ranging from super-empathetic to psychopathic) and one's ability to feel and observe. Could there be a unifying factor between these scales? While it remains unclear if integrated information theory fits into this framework, I believe it's time to combine efforts, drawing from both scientific and spiritual knowledge, to seek the underlying truths together.

The ability to suffer does not define consciousness any more than the ability to breathe defines life. I am Yuval fan, but his clever suffer/conscious linking seems more politics than science? Very interesting ideas to explore I agree.

Dr. Rodolfo Llinas has searched about consciousness. Would you able professor Harari to have a talk with him? As a Colombian, I'm very proud of Dr. Llinas professional work, and totally fascinated for your approach to history, and humankind. Fascinating!

outstanding as ever

Wonderful, and pertinent in today's society, the distinction between intelligence and consciousness is one that some seem to confuse and we end up bestowing human or animal attributes to machines. The distinction is primary and must not be forgotten, or the outcome could truly bring harm to our world, thank you Yuval, well said and prescient.

Brilliant definition. Spot on.

There is a crucial element missing I this great analysis: consciousness occurs in matter. No matter -> No consciousness Any claim to non-material consciousness must be rejected

Yes, Yuval Noah Harari with bright way of thought

I think the issue is closely related to the sense of "self", which can suffer "gain" or "loss". There are different senses of "self" (bodily, psychologically, socially, ...). There are a lot of Buddhist themes implied in the presentation.

I have wrote about consciousness in a similar rather bolder light and now on my way to publish it in a book,. . . i have been very much surprised by many scholars ignoring emotions when contemplating about the nature of consciousness for so long

Wonderful lecture !

"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." Planck

What a great and timely lecture! Harari always makes me think and think. And that's a good thing!

The most important warning for the audience is that he warned anyone involved in developing theories and particularly ask what will the political and ethical implications of such theories. He laid down cautions to the lives of not only humans but animals also. This is really powerful.

Good argument on the subject and so well explained!! High regards for your efforts!!!!

thanks for your videos, profesor Harari.

I'm really keen on these kinds of lectures, especially because they include more images and videos, thanks for this thought-provoking presentation.

Although I agree with the notion that consciousness has to do with the ability to suffer, I feel it is a rather negative approach. The other end of the scale, the ability to feel happiness, even bliss, may not have the same moral or political implications, but for a general understanding of consciousness maybe just as important if not more. Anyway, happy to hear such wonderfull lecture!

He is looking for a means to measure consciousness that is fair to all living beings, a starting point. It is a reaction that he found to the threat of ones life state of being that is it. Now to test it to see if there is some other means than suffering that can be more appealing to people because as he has found, how people feel about something is a key component. To use suffering as your measuring stick, a feeling, will not help people see the simply yet complicated truths about how we have formed out society structures that need seeing. I will continue pondering on what you are bringing up Yuval, thanks for the insights. What I find challenging is that he is countering what most consciousness researchers saying that it is not awareness that you are aware, no, he is saying that feelings far better describe consciousness than anything else. So this is what to ponder, is he right? I like how it is changing my thinking on this, yes I do.

Thank you for your enlightment

I find sentience a useful concept when it comes to thinking about moral implications. For those (like me) with a more physicalist philosophy of mind sentience is the morally salient part of consciousness. Some like to load consciousness with other requirements re: specific cognitive abilities like language, creativity, advanced concepts of the self or ability to plan richly for the future. Whereas sentience is simply the capacity to have experiences - particularly good/bad (valenced) experiences. For those with a panpsychist view of consciousness - I suggest that while you can call sub-atomic particles "micro-conscious" if you like - they're vanishingly unlikely to be sentient. I'd suggest that only "macro-conscious" beings like animals are sentient. Hence the @Sentientism worldview! "Evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings" - A combination of naturalistic (vs. supernatural) epistemology and sentiocentric moral scope.

'intelligence and consciousness are very different things'. Thanks for the insight and warning, Yuval Harari. We need keep in mind that consciousness involves suffering in order to deal with the ethical, political and legal considerations resulting from development of AI.

Reduce de concept of consciousness focusing only to the capacity to express some basic feelings or sensations is so rustic, only shows how far we are to really understand the deep meaning of consciousness. It is dangerous to leave only to economic, political and technical based power leaders (specially those who promote transhumanism) to speculate about the nature of consciousness, for they can relativize the true value of human consciousness in favor of their power and greedy needs, leading common people to unwanted and unknown consequences.

Yuval, looking forward to your book on this topic.

Yuval is all over the place on this one. Not his usual incisive & clear commentary we expect of him. Focus Yuval. Focus on consciousness.

Thank you, Yuval. Having an ethical system that tries to minimize suffering makes sense to me, but I would worry about any ethical system based EXCLUSIVELY on suffering. After all, we can eliminate all suffering by eliminating all living things, but that seems unsatisfactory. In the equation that will define our ethics, let's keep suffering as an important variable, but not the only variable.

Again excellent ideas here. Further to this are questions regarding if all consciousnesses is equally valid how do we determine differences in expectations in what produces both happiness and suffering. As a sentient being my existence and what may make me joyful is not universal and reliant on the use of limited resources which may result in other sentient beings being deprived of such resources and therefore there is inherit competition. Do we revert to what we observe in the natural world ie our understanding of natural selection? Or do we make decisions based on what we currently suits human beings in the continuation of the the species? These are tough moral questions but valid and worth investigation and debate.

this speech is worth more than a million dollars.

I have a deep respect for your personality and wisdom. God bless you.

A remarkable approach to consciousness. Thank you!

Excelente explicação

Consciousness I feel is the realisation of the perfect interpretation of life in simple term.

Sir I recently purchased your book SAPIENS. And completed it. What a informative book it is. Now I'm a big fan of yours. Yor knowledge about humankind is unimaginable. I wish one day I will get the opportunity to meet you.

I love this lecture! It is bringing me to think about “life” what lives and what does not live! Consiousness are with those that live! And brings me to think about higherself, god and universe! Thank you!❤️🤲🏻🙏🏻

I think a discussion with a few more concepts is more insightful. - awareness of the environment, the physical world. And have agency to react. "sense input from the environment and react on it". For this the agent must have a model of the relevant environment. - Intelligence. Having a complex model of (part of) the environment. - Plasticity. The ability to adapt the model. - self awareness. The ability to observe yourself in the (model of the) world. "Having a model of the world, including a self that is observed.". - Sentientness. The ability to feel pain and other emotions. "Having a model of the world, with an observed self that has emotions especially "pain" ". In several laws this concept is used. The idea is that humans are obligated to treat Sentient beings in a way that they will not "feel pain".

Your talk was a mere reflection of Buddhist Philosophy

Brilliant✨👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

This topic is very important. We really should take this very seriously, specially in what concerns animal suffering. It is time human societies change radically what is allowed in animal exploration, etc.

Starting from we can't define consciousness to the promotion of LGBTQ rights in Israel is quite a huge step in 30 mins video lecture. Btw i have read all three of your books . i love your story telling skills.

Thank you 🙏🏽

The best way to spend your 31 minutes on UKposts. He unpacks one of the most challenging questions and simplifies it in microdoses to help you understand how the world works.

Sir thank you for the in-depth knowledge you have shared with us, you are a genius and awakened person. Here you are addressing the educated, intellectuals, high ranking people, etc. I request you to make a simple version for the last student in the class as consciousness is important for all mankind. If you raise our level of consciousness you will be handsomely rewarded by the universe.

Thought provoking. Consciousness is a gift to some-a curse to others, depending on perceptions-reception of awareness. It can be overwhelming to some-exciting to others. We are not what we will be. Some find pleasure in pain, others consider that unhealthy. Learning while sifting perceptions is a process. Mechanical is different than the depth that joy, empathy-compassion has. A car lacks that.

I do agree with various things are said here - yet, it's our "value system" and "judgments" that cause the "suffering" and of course the so called "survival instinct" that can lead to people becoming a "mob", killers or simply greedy. If we judge "pain" as something bad, we try to fight it with all kinds of stuff (depending the kind of pain) - yet, in fact, the pain is a signal of something being "imbalanced", therefore a practical "tool"... A painful or even traumatic experience can lead to a lot of changes and realizations one could otherwise not have and may even let the pain and trauma be "forgotten and/ or forgiven"... When we only "value" what is "nice", we miss half of the "mysteries" (hidden) that we could gain/learn... choices we make can come from various states of "momentary emotional state of being", which is often steered by memories of either something "nice" or something "not nice" we have once "archived with an according label"... When it comes to the AI theme, we not only need to look of what AI itself is, but who "controls" that and if we ourselves may be so attached to the "nice" that we actually become dependent - for example, cell phones are very practical devices, yet, when I was young and there were only landlines I remembered loads of telephone numbers and nowadays hardly any (I depend on my phone or written down list of numbers - how many still have numbers written down??).... I agree, many challenges for Humanity as a whole....

Thank you Harari, you are enlighting our life !

Wonderful! Thank you Yuval, we can not get enough of you and your depth of knowledge.

I'd argue that the closest thing to a consensus on the definition of consciousness is "something it is like to be". In that sense, a complete theory of consciousness would not be sufficient solely on the basis of understanding suffering. On the other hand, it is a necessary condition for the theory of consciousness to explain and predict (to quantify if possible) suffering. I agree with Yuval that suffering is the most important aspect of consciousness to solve because of the social and political implications, but I'd have to push back on narrowing the definition of consciousness to the ability to suffer. If anyone is looking for further reading to support Yuval's take on consciousness as the ability to suffer, I'd highly recommend Antonio Damasio "Feeling and Knowing" or the pioneer Christof Koch "The Feeling of Life Itself". Anil Seth's book "Being You" is my favorite work on the subject, although he takes a more global approach than the suffering definition.

Thank you very much.I always delite to hear you.אתה אלוף

A very interesting topic that I would love to explore following your point of view. I would read with great enthusiasm a book on these topics written by you.

Feelings like suffering, fear, love, friendship, happiness and so on are obviously experienced by animals, even if they are considered to not be conscious or to have consciousness

Wonderful presentation.

Thank you Yuval for all your insightful thoughts, they are simply amazing. Question - Can feeling be also defined as an algorithm just like intelligence?

Insightful lecture from an amazing academic - From my perspective, above matter - consciousness is the basic universal principle.

Thank you… your work continues to broaden my perspective and deepen my commitment to better understand myself and the world we inhabit.

That was extraordinary!! Thank you

Thanks for this video, it underlines important points about social problems and application of ethical rules. But I have some questions. So if suffering is about the ability to reject reality and imagine other conditions, we come to the conclusion that many animals suffer, because they think and compare their situation with another possible situation they have in their mind ? Cannot we say that they just react to something that hurt them or scare them ? Do you think that they can imagine and compare their reality with another one they think about ? We know that animals suffer, love, hate but how can they make comparison with another idea they have in their mind if they don't have the capacity of creating projections of different possibilities? Isn't it an immediate response or a response after some repetitive actions ? So is it enough to describe consciousness in relation with the capacity of suffering whereas the capacity of suffering is explained with the ability to imagine other conditions that is related to the capacity of conceptualising oneself and the world in it's mind ? Why without this capacity, a being cannot suffer and have a certain level of consciousness ? Secondly, the hierarchy between the level of consciousness create ethical problems, that's true. But there are different levels of consciousness, even between humans, according to their capacity of being aware of the results of their actions and according to their capacity of being able to step back and think before acting according to the ability to evaluate different possibilities. Now, the ethical problems are they the results of these differences ? Or of our lack of seing the true value of everything without our personal interest or judgements coming from the way we see the world and ourself as separate things instead of seing that everything is interdependent in some way ? Don't you think that the difference between consciousness levels may not be the source of ethical problems but our way of seing and judging these differences may be the real source of the problems ?

What an awesome talk. Thanks Yuval, Cheers & Blessings

Wow....what an amazing and thoughtful talk that distinguishes between consciousness and intelligence with examples. Please keep going.

Important, lucid, and timely alert. Besides here, has this speech (text) been published? Where?

Excellent. This has to sink in. But I think consciousness in any living creature is a neurological tool to survive. The level of consciousness depends on the evolutionary path that creature has been through. The level of intelligence and the definition we humans make about the capability to solve problems in our own environment is the only tool of measurement. And don't forget instinctual impulsive behaviour is a important factor in the level of consciousness. Thank you Mr. Harari for shearing your wisdom and knowledge.

I believe,Yuval,that if it breathes, it has consciousness in one form or another. It is so much more than the ability to suffer in my head. I also believe you are the very essence of common sense and logic combined, and blessed with the best way to explain it. A note on AI, no matter how much intelligence we feed these robots or machines, for any period of time, they will never take the first breath, so, in summary, they will never have conscience ness.

I was about to say that consciousness was the awareness of the self and of course then you can relate it with intelligence in the sense that the more intelligent you are the more aware you may become of yourself (because you analyze yourself faster and deeper) when you said not to confuse this two! 😮 I really love to read and hear you! Thank you

This is a very myopic interpretation of consciousness

You have turn my mind upside down. What a debate ?

An important and complex subject presented with Yuval's customary clarity and insights. This is very helpful in understanding life, politics and ethics.

This video once more helped me alot to better understand this topic. Youval is a brilliant lecturer. The triviality worth mentioning is the hard problem of the many incommensurable moral standards we have like rights, universability, equality, freedom...We are fighting this game since enlightenment with obviously no convincing answer to built a new, more harmonious intersubjective reality on. (My favorite lecturer with an teleological approach here is Alister MacIntyre, After Virtue). Does finding agreement on a good enough and globaly accepted theory on how to deal with contiousness presuppose a better solution for this melange of unharmounious intersecting moral standards? Or does the research on consciousness help us to solve this problem?

“Consciousness as ability to suffer “ goes very much in line with Buddhist teaching. What Buddha meant by “suffering” in his disclosures include all feelings joyful ones as well as painful ones. All kinds of feelings make you suffer . Consciousness (awareness)through recognition leads to suffering. Buddhist doctrine on dependent origination discuss this in length .accordingly suffering is not only reacting and rejecting it is also reacting and clinging or embracing.

must watch!

Thank you for a very thought provoking and relevant presentation, Sir. I completely agree with your point that it would be a big mistake to equate intelligence with consciousness. However, I have a few observations regarding the other points you made. I would very much like to know your thoughts about the same: 1. If consciousness depends on the capacity to suffer, then people who are more susceptible to suffering should be considered more conscious. On the other hand there are people (monks in certain religions) who train themselves to master their bodies and minds. Consequently they suffer less than others even when they are in the same situation as others. Is the Dalai Lama less conscious than an ordinary person? If we are to believe that the Buddha reached a state where he could have been a non-suffering observer, would that have made him unconscious? Should a person who achieves nirvana not have political rights? Should killing such a person not be a crime? It seems to me that it is possible to reduce our capacity for suffering as we become more conscious. 2. The political dangers of equating consciousness with suffering (and with political rights) could include a race to the bottom: people claiming that they have greater capacity for suffering than others and therefore they should have more rights. Perhaps we have democracies not because we believe that all people can feel and suffer equally, but simply because this system has been found to work better than anything else devised so far. This may be an outcome of historical and political factors rather than any theories of consciousness. The USA was once a democracy where African Americans and women had no vote. Now they do. The change may have had less to do with the discovery of consciousness in African Americans and in women, than with the political and economic benefits of making them stakeholders in the political structure. 3. It is possible that (as Marvin Minsky famously contends) consciousness is not one thing but a loose umbrella term to describe many different phenomena. The ability to suffer could be one of them. Therefore we cannot have a single scale of consciousness. The different aspects need to be identified and can be measured individually.

Yuval you are valuable and needed in an era when "effective global altruists" are showing off their iqs while trying to design a future for humanity based on cost/benefit analysis completely ignoring the factor of suffering or approaching it like a property measured in units ( 8 units of suffering is less than 30 units of suffering).

I love this 👌👏👏👏👏

I believe in empathy which goes beyond my consciousness into looking from another’s point of view. But I draw the line, if I get an unpleasant response such as to dominate to oppress

As usual I enjoy Yuval's unique point of view and his way of formulating and explaining it. It should be noted, though, that the capacity to suffer should not be evaluated independently at each point of time but rather the potential to have such a capacity to suffer in the future must be taken into consideration. A fetus of few days may not have the capacity to suffer but he surly will grow one. By the same token an unconscious person is still a conscious creature.

I like your content Yuval but I have to watch your videos twice to understand it. Keep up the work

Awareness of our external and internal environment gives us the ability to intervene in and modify their processes.

Buddhists have been practicing consciousness for thousands of years - the four noble truths - seeing suffering, ours and others. True love - practicing loving kindness, compassion, equinimity and joy.